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About Our Guest- Laura Rhodes-Levin: Reclaiming Wellness with Neurofeedback
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Laura Rhodes-Levin, LMFT is a licensed therapist who specializes in the evaluation and treatment of anxiety, depression, and trauma. She holds a Master of Science in Counseling and is known for her unique approach in the understanding of anxiety and anxiety disorders.
Laura is the Founder of The Missing Peace Center for Anxiety, a facility that offers a variety of modalities, including Psycho Therapy, Neurofeedback, Art Therapy, Olfactory Anxiety Reduction, Group Therapy, Movement, and more to help ease the nervous system and restore the brain, body, and mind to a place of calmness and relaxation.
At The Missing Peace Center for Anxiety, therapy is combined with modern technology to help facilitate the brain to return to its senses and reach a feeling of well-being.
In addition, Laura currently serves as the Co-Chair for the Special Interest Group of Integrative health for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), an international nonprofit membership organization and leader in the education, training, and research for anxiety, depression and related disorders.
In the past, she has received many honors for her work including a Recognition Award for Going Above and Beyond in the Assistance of Rehabilitation Programs for the National Council of Jewish Women, and The National Council of Jewish Women has bestowed her with the Unsung Hero Award by the City of West Hollywood, as well.
Laura has served as an expert on psychological issues on several outlets, and has been seen on KTLA, Good Day LA, Fox News, KCAL 9, KCBS, KABC, and more.
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Full Podcast Transcription
Laura Rhodes-Levin 00:01
The thoughts you think impact your body, they impact your blood pressure. And it\’s a lovely idea but when they can actually see it on the screen and they think about something that stresses them out and they watch their heart rate get irregular, and then they\’re able to take themselves to a different place. It\’s so empowering!
Diva Nagula 00:23
Hello everyone and welcome to a another episode of From Doctor to Patient. Today, I have Laura Rhodes-Levin, a licensed therapist who specializes in the evaluation and treatment of anxiety, depression and trauma. She holds a Master of Science in counseling and is known for her unique approach in the understanding of anxiety and anxiety disorders. Laura is the founder of the missing piece center for anxiety, it facility that offers a variety of modalities including psychotherapy, neurofeedback, art therapy, olfactory anxiety reduction, group therapy, movement, and much more to help ease the nervous system and restore the brain, body and mind to a place of calmness and relaxation. At the Missing Piece Center for Anxiety, therapies are combined with modern technology to help facilitate the brain to return to its senses and reach a feeling of well being. In addition, Laura currently serves as the co-chair for the special interest group of integrative health for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, an international nonprofit membership organization and leader in the education, training and research for anxiety, depression and related disorders. In the past, she\’s received many honors for her work, including a recognition award for going above and beyond in the assistance of rehabilitation programs. The National Council of Jewish women, the National Council of Jewish women has bestowed her with the unsung hero award by the City of West Hollywood as well. Laura has served as an expert on psychological issues on several outlets, and has been seen on KTLA, Good Day LA, Fox News. KCL9, KCBS, KABC, and many more. Laura, welcome. It\’s great to have you on the show today.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 02:24
Thank you. Great to be here. Thank you so much.
Diva Nagula 02:28
I\’ve been really looking forward to chatting with you. As you know, I have a book in which I talk a lot about psychological issues and anxiety and depression. And it\’s so prevalent, especially with the world that we\’re currently living in. So I\’m sure you\’re extremely busy with a lot of clients and such, what I like about your approach, it seems like your approach to treating anxiety, depression and trauma is very multidisciplinary. And it really attacks this problem at hand through different avenues. And to really help the patient or client really reduced symptoms and be able to keep everything at bay. How did you like, put together all these various modalities? Was it trial and error, you just kinda had an idea that all these things would work?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 03:18
You know, it really all started with meditation and neurofeedback. And then in doing the neurofeedback people are like, \”why aren\’t you my real therapist?\” So in my 40s, I went back to school and got my master\’s. But what I found out is that it takes more than wheels to make a car, you you\’ve got to have all these different parts. And even though talking is wonderful, and I love being a therapist, and I think we all therapists at my facility do great work, anxiety, depression, and trauma lies in more than the thinking-speaking part of our brain. So really, it\’s been my patients that have directed me so every single time It feels like they\’re missing something, for instance movement, I go ahead and add that into the program. So we\’ve expanded into include art therapy, and breath-work and movement and different technologies that work with the brain and the body. Even though our latest one is songwriting, and nutrition is another one. So when you put all this stuff together, then you have a car, then you can go someplace. But with just the wheels. I mean, we didn\’t get far without the wheel, but you need more than that.
Diva Nagula 04:41
And I like that approach because it\’s a very holistic approach. And that\’s how I feel a patient should be treated when dealing with their own medical symptoms and medical issues. You have to look at, you have to look at the problem and try to get to the root cause of the issue. And if you don\’t have other supporting mechanisms in place, it can really confound the issue and actually be problematic for the patient. And you mentioned neurofeedback, let\’s dive into that. I know that\’s your your wheelhouse and your forte. So, can you talk to us a little bit about neurofeedback, what it is and how it\’s utilized to help these symptoms that we\’re discussing?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 05:22
Absolutely. And I\’m glad you use the word holistic, but I think a lot of people mistake that for more woo-woo kind of stuff, as opposed to meaning exactly what it means, working with the whole system with the whole body. And neurofeedback is one of those things that\’s just… well I think all of it is science actually. But this modality is used by NASA to help their astronauts focus in space not feel claustrophobic. It\’s used by the armed forces for PTSD. They actually bring it onto site short, like immediately after PTSD because the sooner you address that in the brain, the easier the recovery time is. And believe it or not, the American Pediatric Academy has named it the number one preferred treatment for ADHD and ADHD, we\’re real tired of medicating our kids. And all those drugs as we get older or not good for our heart. So it helps the grownups with that too. So neurofeedback is a game changer, it is really a game changer.
Diva Nagula 06:39
And how exactly is it employed and used? I mean, is there like, electrodes that are hooked up? Or is it the changing of the brainwaves? I mean, talk to us about, you know, the mechanisms of how it actually works on our bodies.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 06:52
Okay, and this may be quite a long dialogue.
Diva Nagula 06:56 That\’s okay!
Laura Rhodes-Levin 06:56
So please feel free to interrupt me at any point. So, right now, your your brain is amazing. If you have a cut on your leg, it\’s sending a signal up through your nervous system to your brain. And the brain is saying do this, do that, do this, do that, send the signal back down and your leg, heals without us even thinking about it. And that\’s what the brain does. The brain is always communicating with the body to help it function normally and heal itself. And the way the brain does that is through the nervous system. So everything in our body connects to our nervous system. It goes up into our spine, up into our brains gives the signals, receives the signals back and sends the message back down. But the weird irony the way the brain sees and hears the rest of the body through the nerve endings, the brain itself does not have nerve endings. So here\’s this miraculous organ that can fix most things except itself. So about 80 years ago, some neuroscientists thought what if the brain could see itself? What if the brain could hear itself perceive itself? Would it fix itself? And luckily, the answer is yes. Lo and behold neurofeedback and they actually started this on feral cats, how we got electrodes onto a feral cat, they should have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize just for that. But, they they actually take electrode, so for people who are not totally familiar with electrodes or an EEG electroencephalogram. I like to use an EKG as an example, an electrocardiogram. So a lot of times, if you haven\’t experienced it, maybe you even seen it on medical shows, where they put those stickers on the chest. And those stickers are connected to electrodes. And you see the pen going up and down on the paper with the red line, and it\’s reading the electrical activity of the heart. And of course, those electrodes are not sending anything into the body, there\’s no electricity going into the body, it\’s just reading the electricity that\’s coming off of the body. And that\’s what we\’re doing with an EEG, were reading the electricity on the brain. And that goes into the computer. And it actually gets reflected out into a monitor and into speakers. So that now for the first time, your brain is able to look at its own electrical activity. It\’s able to perceive itself and guess what it does correct itself when it\’s able to do that. And luckily, technology has improved. When I first started doing it, you would actually just watch fractal images of your brain, which is really cool for like five minutes. And then it\’s just bad Pink Floyd meet spiral graph. Now actually I use a technology where we plug in a movie, let\’s say you like bridesmaids or fast and furious. Whatever your movie is, your brain electricity gets encoded into the movie. So now your mind can be engaged, your eyes and ears are listening to a movie, but your brain activity is encoded into the movie. So your brain is fixing itself while you\’re watching the movie. Does it matter what you\’re watching? Is it programmed for a specific type of, I don\’t know, some acting or theme that can alter how the brain is seeing things? So there\’s different schools of thought on that. Technically, no, it doesn\’t matter what you\’re watching because your brains looking at its own activity. But the example I like to give to people is, let\’s say a person has has been molested, and you\’re watching a movie where someone\’s getting attacked. That can be very triggering, and have an opposite effect where you\’re supposed to be being soothed and relaxed. The other school of thought on that is the brain actually gets to see its own reaction to this virtual experience, and will it self correct in the moment? Will it start deregulating the trigger response? So there\’s two different schools of thought on that I personally prefer to err toward keeping the body in a relaxed, pleasant state. I haven\’t found that the triggering piece overrides the price the person pays in re experiencing it, especially with severe trauma. So that\’s my thought.
Diva Nagula 12:02
And I guess this is applicable for anxiety, depression, PTSD, those types of things is one disease
process more successful in treating with neurofeedback than another?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 12:16
Well, the quickest, I think, is anxiety, because that fight flight system is so engaged. And when we\’re relaxing the central nervous system in the amygdala, there\’s almost an immediate response and immediate kind of like, ahhh. I mean, they can feel their bodies relax, they can feel their their tummy start giggling they actually get hungry again for the first time in a long time. So I think the one you feel the fastest is anxiety. Trauma is really a miraculous one. It\’s more long term. But the reports and the dreams that people have, a lot of times when you\’re doing trauma work with the neurofeedback, people will start having dreams, of let\’s say they had an abusive father. And in these dreams, now they\’re throwing the dad out of the house, they shift into the power position rather than the victim position. Really interesting to watch and all sorts of trauma. Depression is the hardest to recognize. But it\’s still very effective in its process. It\’s just that the depression sort of shifts into a more neutral place before you actually get to the highs of it, and the real restorative of serotonin and dopamine and GABA to the system. So that one\’s a little less recognizable, but that doesn\’t mean it\’s less accomplishable. That makes sense.
Diva Nagula 13:54
And typically, when you apply neurofeedback for these types of disorders, is it a one session that kind of like can really make the change in a patient? Or is does it require multiple sessions?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 14:08
Yeah, this is no quick fix. When I first got trained, they said 20 Sessions is usually a minimum that is astonishing to me. I find it goes way more into 40-80 sessions for really taking someone all the way to peak performance. And that means your golf game is great. You know, you\’re firing on all pistons. But the way I explain it to people is imagine dysregulation in the brain. picture that dysregulated brainwave going up and down irregularly, and then imagine grass that\’s standing straight up in the air. When you step on grass, it goes flat, but as soon as you move your foot, it pops back up slowly unless you keep walking on it over and over again, then you create a new pathway. And that\’s what we\’re doing with the neurofeedback. And so we initially start with, depending if it\’s pain, or emotion regulated, we start with one specific part of the brain. And we work with that for five to seven sessions. And then we move on to the emotion center, and then we move into trauma. And then we move into left, right brain regulation, and then into the whole, crossing the T\’s, dotting the I\’s, and then peak performance. So it\’s kind of like if you go to the gym, if you just want to go and lose five pounds, it\’s gonna be much faster if you\’re looking to get fit. It\’s a much more long term commitment, so a minimum of 20. But it can go much longer.
Diva Nagula 15:50
Right. So what it seems like to me, it\’s like you\’re changing the brain chemistry through
neuroplasticity, right?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 15:57 Absolutely.
Diva Nagula 15:58
And so it does take some time for these connections and changes to occur. But I like how you\’re, it\’s interesting, I don\’t know if this is the standard, but by employing the neurofeedback to different parts of the brain seems like the play. And as you were alluding to, like a gym, to really get fit and healthy, you want to be using all the machines and all that all the tools that are available at the gym instead of focusing on just one specific modality. And that\’s kind of like analogous to what you\’re doing.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 16:27
And when you think about it, if you take 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years of dysfunction, and it takes you six months to correct it, that\’s still pretty fast!
Diva Nagula 16:38
Yeah. And are you modulating the brainwaves? I mean, are we trying to change their heightened state or whatever state that they\’re in? And modulating said that they\’re more like an Alpha-Theta state? Or what\’s the waveform is that we\’re looking for?
16:58
The trauma work is done in Alpha-Theta. The rest of it is done in beta SMR, ILF, different wavelengths.
Diva Nagula 17:12
And for people who are suffering from from sleep, can the neurofeedback also assist with that
as well?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 17:21
Yeah, actually, it\’s funny, sleep tends to be one of those positive side effects, because the brain doesn\’t just fix what we want it to fix. It fixes its whole self. And I sort of discovered the the impact on sleep, through working with people for anxiety, even I had this one guy who first started doing this years ago, came in for rheumatoid arthritis. Not that we could fix the rheumatoid arthritis, but we could fix, we could reduce the pain that he was experiencing. And he came to me one day and he said, I\’ve been living in my house 30 years. And for 30 years, I\’ve had a drawer full of sleep meds, and I gotta tell ya, I emptied that drawer. And I was so blown away by that. And I ran into him a couple of years later at a cafe. And he said, just out of curiosity, you know, how\’s the sleep? And he goes, drawers still empty, actually, it\’s full of a bunch of other fun stuff, but I sleep like a baby. And that is one of the things that are reported the most is I\’m sleeping so well and dreaming, people who say they\’ve never dreamt before are suddenly dreaming. That\’s a very common result.
Diva Nagula 18:40
It seems like the sleep is a byproduct of the application on neurofeedback for specific disorders like the anxiety and depression. Are there any other byproducts that are positive that we also see besides improving sleep and dreaming?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 18:55
Yeah, mood is is a very common one. Another man that I work with this was for ADD, he said to me that he found it very bizarre that he\’s always open doors for people, at a market or wherever. But people were just smiling at him differently. And his daughter said to him, Daddy, you\’re in such a good mood now… and he said he felt so guilty that he hadn\’t been in a good mood her whole life or whatever, but there was a noticeably different mood. Personally, what I experienced was a bizarre state of calm, but awake. Things that would normally be like, oh my god… I remember one time someone hit my car and it was like I dropped a rubber band on the floor and I didn\’t notice it till afterwards, I reflected on it and went wow, that didn\’t impact me at all. It wasn\’t like, in my stomach, it was just okay, let\’s take care of it.
Diva Nagula 20:12
That\’s, that\’s fascinating. I guess that\’s how you can approach and see how it\’s affecting you possibly because you\’re not taking the medicine, you\’re not taking a drug, right? So you\’d expect when you\’re taking a medicine or a drug, you can feel the impact immediately. But this is something that takes over time. And you may not gauge the success of it immediately after a session, it could be when you notice yourself reacting to a situation a lot differently.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 20:38 Yeah.
Diva Nagula 20:39
And that\’s amazing. And I\’m also assuming that you probably have a lot of success in getting people off of their medications, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, and things of that nature.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 20:49
Of course, and I always do that in conjunction with the doctor because I\’m not a doctor. I don\’t prescribe, but it\’s really a very common thing for people to come in about is… I want to get off my antidepressants. And sometimes a light antidepressant is necessary in some people, but not always. The hardest thing, the most frustrating thing for me, the most heartbreaking thing is that a lot of people when they\’re experiencing anxiety get prescribed benzos. They get prescribed Xanax, Ativan and Klonopin, and they become addicted to the substance and they experience a lot of rebound anxiety where the body is just craving the pill. And it spikes its own anxiety. So addiction is a real thing. And it\’s so hard to get the body out of that cycle. But with with anxiety, it\’s such a relief to know like, I don\’t need this anymore.
Diva Nagula 22:09
Neurofeedback is great and of itself, but then when you stack it with all the other modalities that you use, I would imagine the the success of treatment is so much greater. And I mean, it\’s interesting. So I would have never actually have incorporated art therapy or olfactory anxiety reduction. I mean, I don\’t even know what that is, so what is that? And how do you implement these strategies when a client comes to see you?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 23:32
Okay, so what I have is an intensive outpatient program. That\’s what most people use when they come to me. So we take insurance and they commit to nine hours a week of treatment. So they\’re coming three days a week, three hours a day.
Diva Nagula 23:50 Oh wow, okay.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 23:52
I sort of mimic the drug treatment IOP plan except for we don\’t deal with addiction and substance abuse we deal with strictly emotional-mental health stuff. And so when someone comes to my program, they\’re going to get three months of everything. So you\’re gonna get through those neurofeedback cycles easily in the three months because they\’re doing neuro three times a week. Art Therapy when you do art, you\’re expressing your pain in a way that is so much more subconscious than you realize. And a lot of people will say I\’m not an artist, I\’m like, Do you have feelings because that\’s all you need to do art therapy. If you have feelings, you can do art therapy. In fact, it\’s it\’s almost better to not be an artist because then your head\’s not in that perfection space with your with your work. So, olfactory anxiety reduction is just a fancy way to say aromatherapy. But I feel like when I say aromatherapy people just think woo-woo. But I work with someone who she\’s amazing. She works with the St. Johns cancer ward in Santa Monica. She\’s worked all over London with doctors and sent trigger neuro transmitters. So for instance, we all know lavender relaxes you. But sandalwood keeps you asleep. Lavender will help you fall asleep. Sandalwood will help you stay asleep. Neroli is an interesting scent that can often replace an antidepressant.
Diva Nagula 25:31
I don\’t know what that is. Is that is that a specific oil?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 25:34
Yeah! And the earth has a beautiful pharmacy for us. And scent is our our most powerful sense. It\’s our oldest sense. It\’s huge for upper GI and lower GI problems. IBS, there are certain scents that relax the stomach and restore appetite. Focus, concentration is more like rosemary. I could go on and on. But we make little inhalers for our clients that they just hold up to their nose. It doesn\’t shoot into your nose. It\’s just like a smell. And they carry it around in their pockets. These become tools like instead of popping a pill, why don\’t you get out this scent that naturally relaxes you and grounds you and puts you in place. You know, the breathwork all all the different stuff together that they take that they practice throughout the whole week. And then once they get a hang of it, they kind of figure out what they like using at home. Different things work for different people.
Diva Nagula 26:42
Right. And that\’s it\’s really important. I mean, I guess you\’re just introducing all these various modalities. And whatever resonates with the person after they\’re done with you, they can continue on their own.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 26:52 Exactly.
Diva Nagula 26:53
Another tool that I was interested to see if you use to have an objective measure of success is heart rate variability. Do you have any experience with that and use that as a tool to gauge success?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 27:04
Yeah, I don\’t know if you\’re familiar with heart math at all. Yeah, but heart math has been amazing for our clients. It\’s one thing to say the thoughts you think impact your body, they impact your blood pressure. And it\’s a lovely idea. But when they can actually see it on the screen, and they think about something that stresses them out, and they watch their heart rate get irregular, and then they\’re able to take themselves to a different place. It\’s so empowering.
Diva Nagula 27:40
Is that a neurofeedback tool that you use at your clinic? Or is that something that you send
home people to use on their own when they\’re in their own situations by themselves,
Laura Rhodes-Levin 27:52
We do heart math with them at the clinic. There are smaller, lesser systems that people can purchase and take home. But they spend a lot of time doing it at the center. So they really have a sense of how their thoughts are impacting them.
Diva Nagula 28:07
Right. Yeah, and I\’ve read about heart math, it\’s really awesome how you can do it on your phone or utilize it on an app and just have to purchase the accessories but it\’s a valuable tool. I\’ve been telling myself that I have to get around to doing it because I have a tendency to be in fight or flight. And I\’ve I really feel that I was born into life in fight or flight as my mother was experiencing some sort of physiological trauma in some emotional issues which she delivered me. So I feel that it was only about a year ago when I learned how to breathe diaphragmaticly. I was a chest breather. And so I find myself nowadays it\’s like if I practice my breathing techniques on a regular basis, it\’ll keep me out of fight or flight. But I think I probably need to use something like a heart math tool because I could probably see how much I need that tool to see what my brain is going through on a daily basis and hourly basis and figure out oh, okay, I need to change this and then you change that because that will help me probably get out of fight or flight on a regular basis.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 29:18
Yeah, and you know, fight or flight, you\’re right we inherit emotions just like we do eye color and I like to tell people anxiety is never What\’s wrong with you, anxieties, what\’s right with you. It\’s a necessary component to survival. And we\’re survival of the fittest. So we\’ve passed down generation after generation of people who can recognize the lion and fight or run as fast as they can. But I think also too, as much as it\’s important to know where your body is like is my blood pressure up right now? almost more important, is it how to smooth the body. Because when our bodies engaged in that place, if we know like, for instance, it\’s like taking your temperature, you can take your temperature to know if you have a fever or not. But you kind of already know, and it doesn\’t change the fact that you have a fever. It\’s more important to you know, put the cold, wet socks on your feet, make sure you\’re getting the right antibiotics or fluids or whatever, to help return the body to its normal state then actually monitor it because sometimes over monitoring can contribute to the anxious things.
Diva Nagula 30:39 Good point. Yeah.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 30:40
You want to have the tools first, it doesn\’t do any good to like, my temperature is 105. Now
what do I do?!
Diva Nagula 30:47
That\’s a really good point, because it could, you know, and that\’s people, a lot of people who have anxiety have some sort of OCD, it\’s actually a cycle that they can perpetuate themselves in so that\’s a good point. In general, are there any side effects from neurofeedback?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 31:06
The only side effects that we see are are based on the frequencies that we\’re using. So if someone feels a pressure in their head, or they become anxious or their stomach becomes irritated, that\’s a signal to us that we need to operate on a different frequency and just find the right frequency for the brain. The good thing about the side effect piece is that because there\’s no quick fixes with neurofeedback, there\’s also no quick breaks either. So anything that you\’re doing with neurofeedback, in order to make it long term has to be done over and over and over again. So if we have a session or two where person\’s feeling dysregulated, and we\’re trying to find that frequency, it\’s not going to be permanent, unless we keep doing it at the wrong frequency over and over, which of course we do not do. So it\’s really more of a cue on how to guide us to give the person the right frequency.
Diva Nagula 32:11
I don\’t want to put you on the spot. And if you can\’t think of one, that\’s not an issue, but would
you mind describing like a success story of plenty of your clients?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 32:20
Oh, put me on the spot. There are so many, I mean, it really is like tear jerking sometimes.
Diva Nagula 32:32 Yeah, I\’m sure it is.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 32:36
If I could, I would even use one of my own personal because I always struggle with client confidentiality, and I would never use anyone\’s name anyway, of course. But my own mom really, really struggles as she gets older, her amygdala has become really overwhelmed with anxiety. And whenever she comes in regularly, she\’s like, thank you so much. I feel like myself again. I\’ve treated some people with who are struggling with Alzheimer\’s. And even though it doesn\’t make any long term impact, it\’s like taking a vitamin. So while they\’re doing it, their memory starts coming back, they\’re able to be present more, unfortunately, as soon as they stop, it kind of all goes out the window. But to be able to feel grounded again and okay is a wonderful, wonderful thing. The fear factor… I had this one guy say that his roof was leaking one night. And normally he would wake up his wife and scream and panic and he said, \”It was crazy. I put towels down, and I went to sleep.\” He said, normally, I would have been on the roof with a tarp no knowing what the hell I was doing.
Diva Nagula 34:10
Amazing. And I guess it\’s really important, I\’m sure, you know, we discussed this and covered it, but it\’s really a cumulative effect over time, right. So it\’s not just one session and everyone\’s variable, depending on how much trauma they\’ve experienced, how high their anxiety levels are, how depressed they may feel. So it\’s a personalized treatment program. And that\’s why it\’s great that you have all these different modalities because it can resonate with one person and may not resonate with another.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 34:38
Yeah, and one of our most recent success stories is we introduced a machine called PEMF, which is pulse electro-magnetic feild.
Diva Nagula 34:49
That\’s one of my favorite things. I have one here at my house and I use it frequently.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 34:55
This woman came in. She had had an ectopic pregnancy. She was so depressed, she was in terrible pain. And after like five or six sessions, it really blew me away. She said, I danced out of my shower this morning, and I have not felt this good in years or even ever.
Diva Nagula 35:14
So, I mean, did you stack the pulse electromagnetic frequency therapy with the neurofeedback
and some of the other modalities that you had? or How did you use that?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 35:25
In? In this particular case? She just came in for the PEMF.
Diva Nagula 35:30 Oh, wow.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 35:31 But in general, I do stack.
Diva Nagula 35:34
Do you have a mat or do you just have an applicator that you put in various areas?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 35:38
It\’s this whole, like… I went for the big behemoth. There\’s a pad that goes on your back. And there\’s gold electronic plates that connect at five different points on the chest, on the tummy, on the arm, depending on what part you\’re working, with the back of your head, the front of your head, the plates are pretty big. But I\’ve really only been using that system for six months, and I am blown away by it.
Diva Nagula 36:17
Yeah, and for those listeners who are unfamiliar with PEMF therapy, essentially, you\’re applying electromagnetic frequency that\’s at a very low end of the spectrum. And it\’s given to you in a pulsed way. And what happens is, is that it reduces the inflammation in your body. And it allows more cellular intake of oxygen and other nutrients. And in essence, after a session, your inflammation is significantly improved. And it\’s great for recovery. It\’s great for injury repair. And it\’s so many other applications for just optimal well being. And it\’s one of my favorite tools that I use after a heavy workout. And I just feel like I want to reduce inflammation. If I\’m traveling on an airplane, I want to get onto a PEMF mat because all that inflammation and toxins that I\’m exposed to needs to just get out and filter out and the PEMF just allows that oxygen and nutrients to freely flow into the cells where it needs to be given.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 37:12 I love hearing that.
Diva Nagula 37:13
Yeah, so well, Laura, I really appreciate having you on the show. For the listeners out there who
want to find more about you and your center. How can they find you?
Laura Rhodes-Levin 37:25
So we are in Agoura Hills, California, just really Los Angeles. And you can always check out our
website at www.missingpeace4anxiety.com
Diva Nagula 37:51
And we\’ll include those in our show notes. So I appreciate that. Thanks so much. It\’s been a
pleasure to have you on the show.
Laura Rhodes-Levin 37:57
A pleasure. I hope I get to see you again and thanks to all your listeners and to you!
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